


A Moment of Silence

by SilverGlassRain



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Multi, Psychological Drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-06 15:22:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5422070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverGlassRain/pseuds/SilverGlassRain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I thought I heard something.”</p><p>“Hearing voices now, Gavin?” A  joke. It was a joke, and not even a very good one, because there was only a light chuckle and then everyone went back to work. It was a joke. Everything was fine.</p><p>(there was no screaming in the walls)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Listen to Me

**Author's Note:**

> This is a series I started long before now.  
> I am not sure if it will be continued.

Chapter One: Listen to me

Michael is a half step away from drowning. He wasn't looking down before and he was deaf to sound except for the cries of romance and he didn't hear the shrieking of the ice cracking beneath his feet.

It is a gradual change. It is a slow slip downward. It is a small crack in a glass that begins to branch out. You don't notice it until you grasp and it shatters in your grasp.

“So what is Gavin like?" Lizzy asks, twirling a thick red curl in her finger, and looking up at Michael like he's a movie star. He won't lie and say that sometimes it is nice to be recognized- even if they might probably be too young for his particular content. When Lizzy, who was most likely eleven or twelve, had yelled 'Rage Quit' (nearly making him drop his slushy) he thought he had misheard her. She looked too innocent, dressed in neon with a backpack slung over shoulder, to have seen his videos. She erased that thought immediately, however, when she followed up by screaming "Swiss fucking cheese" at the top of her lungs. Michael decides to talk to her outside.

Lizzy is tall and all awkward limbs. Her elbows are sharp and her fingers are thin with tips covered with the remnants of red polish. Her lanky body reminds Michael of Gavin; as does the way she stumbles over words in excitement.

He signs her history notebook and she bounces the entire time. Her hair dances with her- what can't be contained in a ponytail moves wildly around her face. When she asks about Gavin he feels uncomfortable and he doesn't understand why. Plenty of fans asked about him, and sometimes about their relationship, and he shouldn't have any trouble answering. But he does because he wants to say loud, and obnoxiously happy, and bright, but he suddenly he can't think of the last time Gavin smiled.

"He's stupid," He blurts out after taking way too long to think about it.

It shouldn't be difficult to think of Gavin's smile. But now that Michael thinks of it, now that he stands under the scrutiny of a child with wide green eyes, he realizes that he cannot think of the last time Gavin's eye lit up. He still smiles on occasion but they are those soft, tender looks reserved for moments when the two of them are alone.

* * *

 Michael opens the door. Gavin stumbles forward with arms limp, outstretched like a zombie, and they collide. Collide may not be romantic, or soft, but it will be the word Michael chooses because it is too forceful to be labeled as an embrace and somehow that makes it perfect for them. Their bodies tend to clash at high velocity, as if they have gravity, as if they are ever burning through an atmosphere to meet. "My boy," Gavin slurs into his neck. Michael reels his head back only to come crashing back- this time with their lips pressed hotly together.

They reconnect with the fervor of lovers who have years of absence burning in their bones. Two hours can seem an eternity- time is relative and one minute equals 60 days of not touching. Michael had offered to take Gavin to his house, where everyone knew he would end up by night's end, but Geoff had given him a glare of such intense disapproval that he had stopped mid-sentence. Later during a break Geoff had awkwardly tried to explain that while Gavin was an adult, and free to spend his time however he wanted, he was still a British baby and wasn't actually allowed to do shit without permission. Michael just nodded at the ground.

Geoff would drive him over after he had given him an awkwardly phrased talk about boundaries and being safe.

"Fuck," Michael hisses into Gavin's mouth. He pushes his hands under his shirt- pressing his fingertips against that tan skin- pushing into the small of his back just for the arch of his hips. Gavin's back meets the wall, knees bent and shaking and Michael only pushes harder. When they break for air it is in a state of delirium; drunk off the other. For such intoxication the arousal is minimal- a background drum to passion.

Once upon a time this would have led to sex but once upon a time Michael believed in fairy tales. He anticipated love as a strike of lightning, sudden and blinding, not as the embers already burning beneath his skin. He expected an idea of meant-to-be but over time they caught fire and it was as natural as taking a breath.

"I found a great horror movie," Michael says as he runs his tongue up his lover's neck. He nips at his jawline and Gavin groans. The dance to the living room is a composition piece; alternating artfully between fast and slow- switching seamlessly between soft kisses in the kitchen and the passionate devouring of lips in the hallway. Gavin remains the only one that he can pin to the couch, long legs spread and bent against his chest, without the need to orgasm. His dick is half-hard even thinking of those green eyes flashing his way and it could slice diamonds to bits when Gavin is sighing pleasure beneath him. Yet somehow, as their positions switch and Gavin ends up half on top of him and the fucking of mouths becomes languid kisses, Michael does not complain. He does not regret the lack of sex.

Arousal was before only pleasurable if the end was an orgasm. Why bother with the story if there is no happily ever after? In finding Gavin he finally understands that the journey can best the destination. They are equal, at the least, and Michael sees sex as a side dish not a main course.

 He finds the remote, the movie already ready to go, and he do not regret the lack of sex because sex is not the goal. Sex is an occasional occurrence, not the end game, and tonight the cards do not play that fate. 

Michael curses at the screen as the blood of the blonde stains the soil red. Only idiots would wander into the way of a man with blades for arms. The face pressed into his shoulder chuckles warmly. "They're so fucking stupid," He growls even as he pulls Gavin closer. The only response is a hand gripping his shirt and soft hum that he feels vibrate against his chest.

It is movie night, which is almost every night, and a more accurate description would be a date but Michael is stubborn in his definition that a date must consist of dinner at a diner that places flowers in the center. He denies the inner accusation that it is merely an excuse to see his lover's face framed by gold-dipped rose petals in the low glow of candlelight.

They are not out at dinner so it is not a date but that doesn't stop them from entwining on the leather couch. A horror movie starts playing and they share slow kisses. Michael might (secretly) enjoy pampering Gavin with fine wines and meals, but laying back on the couch with Gavin half on top him, pressed warmly against his side, is definitely on his list of perfect moments.

It might seem too sentimental, at least too sentimental for him, but if ever there was a reason for romance it was this half-wit.

"You seem tired," he comments softly as he runs his fingers through the thick hair scattered against his shoulder. Gavin murmurs and presses his face tighter against his chest. This is the third night in a row he fell asleep halfway through a film. Michael thinks for a second that it was unusual.

* * *

  Lizzy leaves her house in neon green shorts that sit low and end at the start of her thigh. Her mother disapproves but won't explain why. When Lizzy flips her off she gets a bottle thrown at her head. She can still smell alcohol in her hair when she walks into the gas station and she is considering going to restroom to wash it out when she spots a stocky boy at the slushie machine.

When she screams out at him the cashier glares at her. The older woman always reminds Lizzy of her mother- the constant, disappointed glare wrinkling the aged skin around her eyes. They look at her as if her skin is a symbol of a sin she has not learned of yet. Michael seems more embarrassed than her, and for her, and it pisses her off for a half second before she remembers who he is.

He signs her notebook. She asks about Gavin. She regrets it.

 "He sounds interesting," Lizzy says as she shifts uncomfortably from one foot to the other. At first she had been so exited to meet Rage Quit but he seems too quiet and forlorn in real life. She thinks that it is a shame- she hadn't thought that his videos were an act. All he does is stare off into the distance, though, and he isn't even cursing.

He has that hazed look in eyes that her mother sometimes gets when she is drunk in the sunlight; when she is soft and sentimental and remembers Lizzy's brother's first steps. The emotion is mostly lost to Lizzy and these times seem mostly to her the saddened ramblings of a drunken woman she can barely stand about a boy she has never met.

It is not all sadness, she knows, for there is a bitter joy in such times that she imagines she will learn after she has stood beside a graveside.

"He is definitely interesting." Michael smiles. He almost continues onward in his description of Gavin, but such words would be a remembrance of what should be rather than what is, and it seems now that to open his mouth is for his throat to close. He wishes for his voice to work, and for his words to be truth, for he wants to tell her that if he had one work to describe Gavin it would be 'outwards'.

Michael wants desperately to tell her that Gavin takes up a room while contained in a corner. He is an inferno- a tornado of light and fire; he is the origin and the echo. He is the example of the laws of motion. He is energy conserved and reverberated. Michael has seen men with wires around their waists and canopies strung above their heads leaping from cliff sides and Gavin is still the closest he has ever seen a man come to true flight. It seems he can propel his body with nothing more than want.

( _that isn't who he is anymore_ )

Michael found a young bird once, barely-feathered limbs bent and shattered from fall, and he could hear the mother crying out from above in misery. The miserable creature struggled on the concrete. It had to be in agony. Michael was a child himself and around him were buildings placed closer than the bars of a jail cell. There was no animal shelter down the street. He thought of mercy and crushes the writhing body with his boot. It took three tries and he is sure he imagined it but he could hear heartbreak in the cries above him. He says sorry.

Gavin has broken wings, it seems.

"I should head back," Lizzy says even if it isn't true. There are rum soaked sheets waiting to be taken to the laundry mat and broken glasses to clean up but the sun is bright today and she thinks that she will spend the day at Powder Valley. She wants to watch the bees and try to find the queen.

Michael watches her leave. He's pissed. Anger simmers under his skin, wraps around his veins like twine, and pulls his knuckles taut until his fingers clench into fists.

The walk back to the achievement hunter office is too short. He walks hard and with heavy steps as if to crack the concrete but the pull on his muscles does nothing to lessen his rage. All that is angering him is abstract ideas, grains of sand slipping through his fingertips, and he can grab hold of nothing solid enough to scream at.

Gavin is in there. He is in there waiting for him, because he hadn’t wanted to tag along to the gas station for a slushy. He had just stayed sitting in his chair and stared at his screen.

His fucking blank screen

Michael had written it off- he was about to open a program or a browser and really Michael had just glanced at it. It hadn’t meant anything, but now it was another piece of some abstract puzzle, and all the pieces were coming together to create a giant picture of something wrong.

But that was all that Michael knew- that something was wrong. All these pieces were coming together, but he didn’t know why, or what any of it truly meant.

He storms back into the office. His hands shake, breath coming too fast. He can't calm down. He needs to punch something, or scream, but he doesn't have anything. It was Tuesday. There is no rage quit. They had done a few short recordings earlier, nothing major, and now they are in the quiet lull of editing.

He stands before them, his friends- what he would describe as loved ones if he were to ever be sentimental.

The men glance up at his arrival, and there are a few greetings, or nods in acknowledgement, from each of them. Except Gavin.

Except Gavin, who is still looking at his blank screen.

His eyes are drooping, half-lidded, body limp and low in the chair. His gaze is on the screen, but it is unfocused and far-off. Gavin doesn’t even look as if he was really present.

It is a delicate situation, Michael supposes.

“Gavin, what the fucking fuck are you fucking doing?”

He was never good at being ‘delicate’.


	2. Well-Adjusted

Sometimes as a child Gavin dreamt of drowning dressed in the visage of rest. Sinking as stone into blackened blue spoke of peace.

"Will that be all today sir?" Mary is a picture of patience. She swallows sighs. She never rolls her eyes. A lady must be respectful. Her father taught her and she could never disobey him- not when he buried the implications beneath it that a woman earns worth while for a man it is inherent. So Mary has a thin waist and stands with her hip cocked right and Mary has a push up bra she hides at home and Mary won't tap her fingers but her nails are sex red. She is rebellious is the worst of ways. She protests his ideals by punishing herself- she is liberated only in shame (why save a burned building). 

"Sir?" He looks lost. She would mention dementia but he is clearly in his twenties. He is handsome but he isn't reaching for his wallet- the delay is the seconds that could be spent writing in the notebook hidden under the counter. Sure he has puppy dog eyes but they are staring at his hands and not at her. "Are you okay?" She buries her irritation under perfectly expressed concern. Mary is a picture of what she should feel despite murder words shifting in her skin.

When he looks at her, it looks like loss. It is merely another expression she has perfected, and as such recognizes, but on him the authenticity is glaring. "Sir?" When he pulls out his wallet his hands are shaking minutely. A counterfeiter can see a fake miles away. 

Mary has metal bones, her heart is steel because it has to be, and she forces her smile even though it burns.

As he goes to leave, looking lost still, she itches to halt him but the urge is not unlike her consistent desires to scream. It is forced back.

 

Gavin is well-adjusted.

The woman behind the counter is smiling at him intensely. He thinks it must seem genuine to those who do not live stitched together by lies. As it is, he is lately comprised of fraying thread and he sees the strings pulling her smile.

He closes his wallet and takes his drink from the counter. Outside, Michael waits. When he asks Gavin what took so long he shrugs. He didn't realize any time had passed. Michael wraps a warm arm around his back. Focusing is easier with his lover's body pressed close. He sags against him- content to pretend they don't have to go back to work. All he wants is to stand with his head bent into the crook of Michael's neck.

Gavin is well-adjusted because that is a versatile phrase, and for one if may mean thriving, and for another it may mean breathing when the air around is heavy and dark. It feels like a pity phrase; like a truth dependent on exception. Without specification it becomes a falsity- a troubled kid becomes a hardened criminal without mention of the bruises his father left on his skin.

"Let's go back, love," Michael breathes into his ear. 

He is well-adjusted because when he wakes up in the morning, and he faces the sun drifting through his window, he does not close his eyes. And he wants to. Oh, how he wishes for the brief peace of slumber. But he is well-adjusted, and he climbs from his bed.  

The sun glares like a killer- eyes him like a victim. He thinks the world sees him as lesser and the sun seems sentient when it passes over his body. He feels like a street mime- muted white kept within an invisible wall as life moves without him. He feels forgotten 'cept a coin- left behind but for the money in his name. Cash is his voice when he talks but somehow the spike of his hair and the softness of his eyes speaks enough green without his words. He wonders who would come and find him, should he wander into mist, without a reward poster clenched in their fists.

His bones ache. A bent woman passes them with a cane clenched in her hand and he thinks himself similar. 

He knows there was a time before this- when every movement was not a marathon. He can remember before, but every day before is blurred more, and he is left with no place for peace. The past is a hazed glory, and if he is able to recall happiness it is accompanied by the sorrow of knowing it as the past, and never the present.

He used to look to the future, and when his days were full of darkness, it provided the far-off lights that illuminated his path. The stepping stones have fallen now.

With the past nearly forgotten, and the future stripped of promise, Gavin is left with only his present. It used to give him joy, living in the quick seconds of moving time. His actions were quick, and his thoughts, though somewhat lagged behind, were ever full of energy.

It is not that he cannot remember laughing. It is that he cannot remember _why_ he laughed. His situation has not altered dramatically. It is still full of friends that have stood beside him for many years. He is still loved, and cherished, by many.

He looks in the mirror, and tries to focus. Gavin knows it his him who has changed, but he cannot recall when the change occurred. There is no day marked on a calendar, or written in a journal. He has looked through old writings, and conversations, and he finds no clear warning signs.

All he finds is himself, fading away. The conversations once had daily have become sparse. His twitter account, last updated two months prior, shows the last message he sent into the endless community of the internet.

“Tired from work. Just gonna stay home with my boi tonight.”

It is not so much that he has become depressed. He almost thinks that depression would be easier. Sadness, while not tangible, is an emotion he has experienced, and described. He is familiar with sadness, though he did not experience it too often.

He could tell someone that he was depressed, or upset. But he has no way to describe _this._

 _This_ is nothingness. He is not numb, not truly, because to be numb is to imply the hidden presence of other emotions or pain. But Gavin doesn’t really feel anything but tired.

He is fading. 

What was him, who he truly was, is nearly gone now. He catches glimpses, mostly in memories, but those are rare. He knew who he was, but that person is a stranger now.

Who he is now does not fit in with the lift of who he was. The man he was before had a life, and it was filled with happiness and friends and color and noise. That man’s life was vibrant.

Gavin is grey. He is a shadow who has stepped into a flesh body.

“Ready to go, buddy?” Geoff is standing at the bathroom door. He takes in the sight of Gavin, still in boxers, standing before the mirror. “What the fuck man? We are supposed to be leaving.” He is yelling, but he always yells. He knows Gavin most likely overslept. It has happened before, to both of them, and it is nothing strange.

Gavin does not hear Geoff. He is still standing, staring at the face of a man he doesn’t recognize, and thinking of shadows, and hollow souls. All he can really hear is _them._

He does not want to describe them as hearing voices. Or rather, he would not wish to describe them that way, but it has never really occurred to him to describe them at all. They are an undeniable fact for him. He treats them the same way a nurse would react to the endless beeping of a heart monitor. To some, the noise would be nearly unbearable.

But Gavin is well-adjusted.

_-pleasepleasegavinlistentomeplease-_

Gavin is well-adjusted, so he lives with them.

He hears them as he stares into the mirror, but they are not in the fore-front of his mind. They are the background, the echo, the endless choir singing hymns in his head.

Geoff is still standing before him. He does not know that Gavin is a grey shadow, or that there are voices speaking hushed words only he can hear, but he does know that this moment is strange. Gavin’s eyes are distant, and hazed, as if he is lost.

Perhaps if it was only this moment, Geoff could rationalize it as Gavin being lost in thought, perhaps hung-over. But this moment cannot only be one singular moment, for it brings with it every moment past. Unlike Gavin, his thoughts are connected. Geoff cannot see Gavin, standing nearly naked, lost in thought before a mirror, without an hour yesterday, or a minute last week, that were so similar to this.

Gavin lives with Geoff, but they are not roommates. A roommate could be a disconnected thing, free of bond or feeling. They are family, and they are connected, and Geoff has seen him every day not as another person with whom he shares a house, but as a loved one.

Geoff is aware of Gavin. He is aware of who he is, or rather who he was, because Geoff can no longer ignore this. The boy he brought home one day was loud, and excited, and he breathed laughter. This man, standing before him, is not that boy anymore.

He wants to not realize this, but he does, and he rests his head in his hands for a moment. The weight of this is heavy, but Geoff soon squares his shoulders, and straightens, and prepares to do what he has always been willing and waiting to do; He prepares to care for, and protect, and cherish his family.

Geoff is not a poetic man, and he does not think of this in terms of love, or family, or devotion. He simply sees Gavin, and sees he is troubled, and he faces it.

“Gavin fucking wake up you asshole!”


	3. Observant

Ryan is an observant man, simply because he is a man quiet and reserved, and through his silence he hears clearly all those around him. This particular character trait has a logical origin; it is born of a speech impediment from early childhood. He began to speak early and at first the slurred pronunciations were written off as normal but beginning school introduces many new concepts to him, including mockery, and he doesn't learn colors as much as he learns humiliation.

His parents practice with him at first. They buy him flash cards from the book store and quiz him after dinner with dessert locked away as a prize for improvement. It wasn't meant as a punishment but an encouragement but little James was used to a scoop of caramel ice cream, unless he was bad, and ever an intelligent boy he deduces his words as failure. A mute man could be wise and Ryan would rather be branded shy than stupid. There are red marks on his report card but the other children call him a book worm and not retarded. His parents begin to pressure him to talk at all instead of talking right.

The teacher pushes him too, but has never spoken against the snickering. She lets it permeate the room and stares at him, as if expecting him to rise above it- as if asking him to prove them wrong. The weight lies on him to be correct. He starts hiding his report card when his parents begin to plan their divorce. They get lost among moving boxes. When his mom drives away from the house, no longer _his_ house, she says that is will be a fresh start. Ryan doesn't respond but there are visions of sorrow performing dances in his head. Private school will help him (less students means more teacher attention). He thinks that it will be even harder to be forgotten.

St. Paul's Catholic School teaches him that he is born from God's image; he has perfect as destiny but sin as predisposition. They have confession on the calendar and Ryan already knows what to say. At supper he stares at the cross nailed to the wall, thinks it a strange thing to carve dying, and asks his mother if God messed up when he was made. He gets two scoops of ice cream that night, and he doesn't even have to practice his words, but his mom cried at the dinner table and it feels like sin.

His mother introduces the speech therapist at someone who will help him speak (he doesn't want to). She is patient and kind, in a way he barely understands, and promises that he can have candy before he leaves as long as he speaks at all. The experience isn't as bad as he had predicted but her lesson plan is the repetition of syllables that twist his tongue.

And of course time passes and of course he learns tricks to speak correctly but it will never feel natural. Certain words will always be forced. 

It is especially easy when joining achievement hunter, for most of the others are loud, and exuberant, and he finds peace in their endless noise. None of them really bother him for his quiet nature; if anything it allows him to fit in better. He never tries to compete with the energy of Michael or Gavin- he is a balance.

Ryan fits into the small, quiet places. It is where he finds his home- in the corners and back rooms where he can tuck himself away. He finds his voice in the lulls of conversations, when he has had time to observe and take notes and calculate a response.

Ryan is an observant man, and so Ryan saw in full detail Gavin’s descent. At first the changes were small, insignificant, and even he almost missed them. But Ryan is an observant man, and he saw.

He saw the morning rituals of red bulls and embraces filled with long limbs and wide smiles deteriorate into quiet shuffling and tight-lipped smiles that formed when it was expected, not when it was natural. Gavin would arrive and collapse into his chair as if his body was an unbearable burden, despite the signs of weight loss beginning to appear in his sharp shoulders and knees, and a once flat stomach that has begun to curl inward.

Gavin began to look worn, stretched thin, and Ryan considered the possibility of an eating disorder. Several of the symptoms fit –loss of energy, rapid weight loss, isolation- but as he watched him, he began to notice even more symptoms; ones that caused knots of worry to twist in his stomach.

He saw the random jumps- bursts of movement that would dictate surprise but had no cause. Gavin’s eyes would dart around the room, and the expression on his face was not one of simply searching for the origin of a noise. No- his eyes were wide and panicked, mouth open and body tensed. He was not surprised. He seemed… disturbed.

“What?”

One day, in the hushed afternoon as the long trial of editing began, Gavin half-leapt from his char. Ryan recognized the movement- tensed body and wide eyes and panicked breaths. He turned his chair to scan the room, but his hands still desperately clutched the arm rests for support. The others gave a small start at his sudden exclamation, but none of them were truly worried. Geoff was the only one to actually move towards him, a small slide in his chair, while the others simply twisted to glance at him.

Gavin looked at their faces, and Ryan saw his face crumble as he settled back into his chair. Ryan knew that moment had cemented a truth for both of them- both know knew whatever Gavin had experienced, he had experienced it alone.

“What?” Geoff looked concerned, but his eyes were focused on the Gavin’s screen, not Gavin- most likely expecting a computer error.

“I thought I heard something.” Gavin’s voice was hesitant, shaking so very slightly, and he was curling in on himself.

“Hearing voices now, Gavin?” Jack chuckled lightly at his own joke, and a few followed suite but only barely. Geoff turned back around to resume his work, as everyone else had already done. Everyone except Ryan, who saw Gavin’s face become shadowed by absolute misery.

Since that day, Gavin no longer jumped or gave small shouts. He would flinch, just slightly, and it was always a curl inwards, as if whatever startled him was surrounding him, bearing down from every direction.

One of Ryan’s quirks was the way he wore his headphones- one ear always uncovered. He never liked to be made so unaware of what was happening around him. Wearing his headphones this way, he found, allowed him to hear tidbits of conversations not meant to be overheard, or the movement of someone trying to sneak up to surprise him, or, in this case, Gavin’s small whimpers.

Mostly the whimpers were more whine; high pitched and short. Gavin’s eyes would shut tight, and occasionally his hands would reach up to brush against his ears as if to ward against some painful noise.

Ryan is an observant man, and he is also considerably intelligent, and he figured out quite quickly that Gavin was hearing something. He wasn’t sure what it was- voices or noises- but he knew it was taking from Gavin every inch of life.

It was a delicate situation, and Ryan was never one to interfere with such private matters. He knew the others were beginning to catch on. Geoff would watch him with that worried grimace, hands clenched tightly around a glass of alcohol. Michael was noticing as well, but his reaction was not as quiet- just the opposite. He was growing louder- prodding and poking and screaming at Gavin more and more. It seemed mostly subconscious; a desire to fix Gavin but no idea of how to do it.

Ryan did not want to be so involved. He didn’t want the weight of actually dealing with the situation on his shoulders. He just wanted one of the others to figure this out, someone who would be more equipped to handle it, but it was taking so long, and Gavin was deteriorating further each day.

And finally, one day, everything broke open.

Something was different the moment Gavin and Geoff arrived. Gavin was quiet, as was now normal, but instead of withdrawn he seemed noticeably distressed- glancing at Geoff who was bursting with frustration. Something had occurred between them; something that would cause Geoff to abandon almost any pretense of working. His chair was turned sideways, one hand on a keyboard, but both eyes looking at nothing but Gavin.

Ryan kept waiting for the outburst- the climax of whatever argument or discussion had clearly not gotten resolved. Time crept on, and it seemed as if it would never happen. Geoff eventually turned back to his desk, shoulders slumped in defeat. Gavin had withdrawn once more. His arms lay at his side, eyes turned to his screen but not truly seeing it. Every once in a while he would flinch slightly.

It is not until late afternoon that Ryan finally gets his wish. Michael bursts into the room, seeing red, and his gaze zeroes in on the sullen boy curled in his chair.

“Gavin what the fucking fuck are you fucking doing?”

The room explodes.

Gavin flinches back, chair nearly flying, hands lifting to his ears. When he sees Michael, when he understands that the scream was from him and not from his head, he visibly relaxes. He is comfortable with Michael’s anger, knows it.

“What’s wrong?” Gavin voice is light, the closest to laughing Ryan has heard in a very long time. When Michael doesn’t move, simply stays standing with his entire body rigid, Gavin begins to tense.

“What do fucking mean ‘What’s wrong’? What the fuck is wrong with you?” There is no question- this is legitimate rage and the others, who had been quiet and tensed and waiting, leapt into the situation.

“Whoah, Michael, what’s up buddy?” Geoff stands, hands raised in a diplomatic manner, but his voice has that edge to it. It is the edge that reminds them any time he uses it that he is in fact their boss. Michael spares Geoff a half-second glare before turning back to Gavin, who has begun to scratch nervously at his cheek.

“You know exactly what I mean! You all do!” He gestures the room in a wide motion. He is panicked, Ryan realizes, his anger turning what needed to be a quiet, calm discussion into a battle.

Ryan is an observant man.

Ryan is an observant man, and he sees the way Geoff’s arms are tensing, hands twitching in a desire to turn into fists. He sees Gavin becoming overwhelmed, chest falling still as his breathing stops- as it always does when he is panicked.

This is going to end badly, Ryan can see it.

“I do.” He speaks up in the quiet space, as he always does, before Michael or Geoff can continue. And this isn’t the place or the environment to have this discussion but it has started, and he has no real choice now. He can’t walk away from this. “Gavin, are you okay?”

Gavin is caught off guard. His eyes won’t stop bouncing around the room. “What? I’m- of course I’m okay!” He doesn’t know what to say, so he defaults to the response he knows you are supposed to say.

“Gavin, you have been acting differently for a couple of months now.” Ryan lets him hear that- lets it sink in. As expected, Gavin does not react well. He has been suffering with this, and bearing it, but he has never truly thought about it or dared talk about it.

“No- No I’m not! You guys are crazy.”

“Actually…” Geoff moves forward awkwardly. “Actually you really have been acting weird buddy.”

“Is- is this about this morning? Because I told you I just overslept!” Gavin is going on the defensive, and this is exactly why Ryan knew this kind of confrontation would crash and burn. They are practically circled around him, with Michael still barring the door, and he knows Gavin feels trapped.

He should have talked to them. He should have gathered his courage, and brought it up to Geoff in quiet. They should have planned this- written down words to say instead of attacking him like this.

“You were standing in front of the mirror for like twenty minutes, dude! And it’s not just about this morning!” Geoff is still talking, and he is looking at Gavin, and how is he not noticing the color draining from his face and the way his breathing is becoming heaving gasps? Ryan can see so much, he can see this playing out and falling apart, and he needs to intervene but his throat suddenly seems locked.

Do something, he screams. You need to do something!

“Everybody shut the fuck up!”

When he shouts, everyone listens.

He stands, shoving the random piles and the cords aside and on the floor because right now it just doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is Gavin- the loud, obnoxious British boy that should be shouting, and falling over, and inventing ridiculous words.

“Gavin, it’s going to be okay.” He crouches beside Gavin’s chair. “You’re going to be okay.”

Gavin has been falling apart for so long. His world has been breaking and cracking beneath his feet and he has had no one to steady him. And when Ryan looks at him with those calm eyes, and tells him in that confident, assured voice that he is going to be okay- that he doesn’t have to keep standing alone- he breaks down.

In an instant, Michael is on the floor beside Ryan, grasping Gavin’s hand and stroking it and rubbing it, and holding it against his chest. And when his head dips, and he begins to press loving kisses to the long fingers, Gavin falls forward. It is an awkward embrace, with Gavin bent nearly out of his char, but to Michael it is perfect.

All of them move slowly forward. Geoff places a hand on Gavin’s head, ruffling his hair lightly. “We’re gonna get you help, Gavvy.”

“Yeah, we’re here for ya man.” Jack stands the farthest back, but Ryan knows how awkward he feels. Jack has never been one for emotional talks, or loving moments, but he feels deeply for Gavin- for all of them.

Ray doesn’t say anything, but he moves to stand behind Ryan. A small hand curls onto the back of his shirt. Ray is quiet, just like him, and they have often found peace in each other’s company.

Gavin doesn’t know how much time passes before he finally stops crying. All he can feel is Michael’s arms wrapped so tightly around him he can barely breathe, and Geoff’s warm hand on his head.

And for the first time in so long, the choir of voices singing misery in his head is drowned out.

It’s going to be okay.

You are going to be fine, Gavin.

We’re gonna get you help.

It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay.

And he clutches harder at Michael, and breathes in.

It’s going to be okay.


	4. My Only Sunshine

“Morning,” Geoff grumbles. 

There is light upon the window, and it speaks of the early sun. It is morning, Gavin agrees in silence with himself, and he turns to-

“Morning,” He replies, to the empty space before him. The bowl that had been set upon the counter is gone, most likely behind the closed cabinet door that just a moment ago was- No. He breaks his thoughts. He can’t know- won’t decide- on what was or what seemed to be.

To presume knowledge is to claim a hold upon reality or vision, and Gavin knows he can make no such claim. Reality is solid but Gavin is fluid; he flows in between the rules and maps and definitions of real.

He walks to the cabinet and retrieves a bowl –the one Geoff was just/stop- and he places it upon the counter. And he stares. He cannot remember if he is hungry, and though he thinks he is, he can’t think of what meal to eat, or if he even needs this bowl, because he isn’t sure what time of day it-

“Morning,” Geoff grumbles, leaning against Gavin’s doorframe with a cup of coffee clutched in his hands. Gavin looks down again, at his empty bowl, at his blanket twisted around his legs. His hands are cupped before him, as if to hold water, or perhaps milk because Gavin does like cereal in the morning. But his fingers, even pressed tightly together, have small gaps and the milk is going to spill.

He whines, and presses his hands together, as if in prayer. Perhaps he is an angel. He has never believed much in angels, but these whispers could be a choir. Not when they scream, of course, but when they are this hushed rhythm. Are they singing a hymn for him, he wonders.

When he opens his eyes, he is fairly sure he isn’t an angel. Briefly he wonders what became of his bowl. Numbers flash red beside him, and they seem to say it is morning, or that he is late. He thinks there is noise, a loud beep. He isn’t sure, but he presses the off button a few times just in case.

He stands, and rubs his eyes.

“Hey, buddy,” Geoff grumbles.

…………………………………………….

Geoff was not looking forward to this. Sometimes he acted as if he was dreading something- he was made of sarcasm really what did you expect- but he really, really wasn’t looking forward to this.

Part of him had hoped, had hoped so desperately, that Gavin was just going to wake up. A magic man was going to snap his fingers, or wave some sparkly wand, and Gavin would open his eyes bright and his smile wide. He would laugh until he couldn’t breathe and Geoff would be right there beside him.

But that isn’t going to happen.

The big blow out, which somehow was over a week ago, didn’t really help. They saw the problem, and recognized it, and yeah that was a big step in the right direction. But as far as hope? It didn’t do shit.

Geoff knows there is no easy way out of this situation, though at this point Geoff would be happy to find any way out, whether it be hard or not. He tried the internet first, because google should solve everything. All he got back was a dick-load of disorders that could fit Gavin, but none of them really fit him perfectly, and some of the symptoms were so fucking vague that they could have fit anyone.

He spoke to Ryan, only briefly, and the man offered the most logical solution- He needs a professional- but it wasn’t really any help at all. Of course Geoff has thought of taking him to a professional. But what professional? Did he need a therapist, a regular physician, a neurologist? What should he even say to them? Hell, what does he say to the person when he makes an appointment?

‘I need to make an appointment for my British roommate because apparently he went nuts.’

Yeah. That sounded great.

He sighs, and drops his head into his hands. Eventually he had given up trying to find some perfect route and just booked the soonest appointment his own doctor had available- Which was why he was up at seven in the morning, already dressed and injected with caffeine.

The appointment is at 8am. The clock is ticking and he needs to wake him up.

And he hates it. Every moment of this solidifies the situation further. What was a blurred haze of “something wrong” is becoming a mosaic of thick, dark lines.

He opens his door without knocking. Normally he would never dare do that, especially since he is himself a man and he is perfectly aware of what he could walk in on. However, as of late, to knock was to get no response. To leave the door shut was to wait for Gavin to open it in his own time, and Geoff knew the boy barely had any sense of time left.

He does brace himself as he opens the door, but not for any reason so simple as nudity or even masturbation. He braces himself because each time he finds Gavin lost inside himself, it terrifies him.

Which is exactly was he finds.

He opens the door to Gavin sitting on the bed, hands cupped before him. He watches as he whines, and presses his fingers together tight.

“Morning,” He grumbles. Gavin doesn’t notice. He lies down, hands still held before him as if he were praying. Geoff tries to repeat himself. He chokes. For a moment he lowers his head, hand over his eyes, and breathes. He hears Gavin move but he doesn’t look, can’t look, because he knows Gavin isn’t moving for him. He isn’t responding to him- hell, Geoff isn’t sure Gavin even remembers who he is sometimes.

And that- that idea that who Gavin was may never come back- fucking terrifies him.

Gavin, his Gavin who is so fucking much to him and means so much and makes up so much of his every day, could be gone.

To look at Gavin now, in this place- It feels like loss.

And fuck biology and blood and genes- Gavin is his son. He cares for him, and loves him, and stands by him as he grows and makes his mistakes and learns.

Man the fuck up.

Geoff coughs, and shakes himself, and faces this because who the fuck else is going to do it? And sure, when he sees Gavin standing beside his bed with his eyes on the wall, he wants to do nothing more than turn away again. But he doesn’t. He can’t.

“Hey buddy.”

Gavin only looks at him for a half-second, but that half-second feels beautiful and earth shaking. That half-second is a firework that lasts a mere moment but dances in your eyes for days. His gaze returns to the wall, but he is moving now. His arms remain at his side, but he begins to make circles with his wrist, twisting his hand in nonsensical patterns.

“Good morning.”

God, Geoff could have cried at the sound. Hope begins to build in his chest, because he is moving and talking and it isn’t perfect but the past few days Gavin hasn’t even gotten out of bed until noon, even when Geoff pushes and prods. This is progress, this is something- and maybe this is the sign that Gavin his finally going to get better!

He knew it was going to happen. Never doubted it for a second because he believed in Gavin. Of course Gavin was going to be fine- Gavin was always-

“Good morning.”

And he imagines this is what it feels to be a balloon. Filled with helium and floating so high; above the world and everything dark and nasty.

“Good morning. Good morning. My bowl. Where is my bowl?”

Floating above everything only to be stabbed and ripped and shot and lose every bit of life.

“Good morning,” He insists to the wall.

………………….

Michael wasn’t originally invited to the doctor. The only reason he found out in time is probably because he called Geoff twice a day, without fail, to ask about Gavin. At first, Geoff seemed offended by his ‘suggestion’ that he should tag along to the doctor’s visit. He said it was a family thing- really private- and that it wasn’t really appropriate. Michael didn’t respond, and as his silence grew longer and tenser, the more broken and frantic the explanations became.

“Fucking fine.” And suddenly he was included. He was lucky. He hadn’t been able to think of any real reason he should be allowed to come. It had just seemed right. He didn’t always think things through, and when Geoff initially told him no, he had panicked because how could he possibly put into words why he needed to be there?

All he could think of was that it was Gavin, his boy- of course he should be there!

He wanted to be there every day, and at first Geoff had allowed his frequent visits. The last few days, however, his visits had been stopped. He had been tempted to argue, but Geoff’s voice over the phone was tight and miserable. He told him Gavin was doing worse, and Michael didn’t understand because how could it get worse?

His boy was already pretty much gone and lost to space. What could be worse?

At first he tried to imagine the worst case scenario, but the worst outcomes didn’t honestly seem too far-fetched and it only made it worse. Then he tried to imagine the best outcomes, but he didn’t have the heart to give himself hope.

So when he showed up at 7:15am he tried to imagine nothing, and hope for nothing.

But when he opens the door -because he was from Jersey; did you think he knocked or something- he realizes that he must have had some sliver of hope left because when he sees Geoff sitting against the wall with head in hands, something in him crashes and burns.

“Geoff?”

Geoff lowers his hands. He looks exhausted. “Jesus kid. You gotta learn how to fucking knock.” Michael gives a half-laugh. It wasn’t funny, but it did offer him some sort of comfort. “Gavin-uh- well he…”. Every failed start and stutter twists twine around his veins and pulls. He needs Geoff to just fucking say it, and he would tell him that, but his mouth is suddenly really dry and he doesn’t think he can talk.

“My bowl?”

It should be hilarious; Gavin perched in his boxers beside his door with his hands cupped before his chest. It is ridiculous, and strange, and completely Gavin.

Except this isn’t Gavin.

This is a man who is looking at Michael as if the world is turning to dust around them, falling apart, and somehow Michael is the only one who can tell him why.

“My bowl?” He voice is shaking, and with deepening horror Michael realizes Gavin is about to cry. The man who said he hadn’t cried in fourteen years, is about to break down in front of him and Michael doesn’t know what the fuck to do and Geoff is still sitting there and what is he-

And then Geoff has his hands on Gavin’s shoulders and is steering him back into his room. He is murmuring things, face set as stone and shoulders straight. Michael follows. He doesn’t know what else to do. He can’t just stand there being useless in the living room, although he ends up standing uselessly in the entrance of Gavin’s bedroom.

Michael watches as Geoff pushes and pulls and maneuvers until Gavin is dressed and sitting on the bed. When Geoff begins to curse under his breath as he attempts to force on a shoe, Michael moves. He kneels beside his boss, a man he has admired and respected for years, and helps put shoes on Gavin.

It feels as if he is dreaming.

He looks up at Gavin, who has lowered his hands but whose eyes are nearly screwed shut and whose lips are trembling.

He looks up at Gavin.

And it feels like loss.


	5. Wait

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will probably change this over time.   
> Don't know if anyone will even like this.

     Geoff doesn’t like to wait. The first doctor to make him wait an hour is the first doctor he forces against a wall with his fists wrapped in his collar. The condescending tone lit the fuse but the wait was what hooked it to t.n.t. Finding a decent doctor takes years he might be able to count if he gave a shit. He finds Dr. Ethram by storming out of a different doctor’s office.

  
      The doctor had talked down to him as if he were a child. Geoff knew his love of alcohol may not be the healthiest but his continuing to drink despite that knowledge did not prove him an idiot. He had opened the door so violently he cracked the wall. Ethram met him by offering him a cigarette while wearing a lab coat. Geoff questioned his medical advice. Ethram had shrugged and the two were a professional match made in heaven.

  
      Geoff never has to sit in that stupid plastic chair for longer than ten minutes. Ethram schedules on the hour, not in fifteen minute increments, and so his patients are always given the time they need. “It is the only thing that makes sense to me,” explained the doctor once. “I don’t want to diagnose someone without all the information. I need time for that.” When Geoff had called the middle aged man he didn’t know what to say at first. He settled on a plea for him. They had an appointment the next day.

* * *

 

_Gavin is in a car. He is hungry. He doesn’t want to eat._

_Michael is a vision of sorrow. Visions are art and art is meaningless. Souls are not paint. To have heart is to not be composed of ink. Gavin doesn’t believe in absolutes. But a boy with curly hair is sitting beside him in a car. He is shaking._   
  
_Gavin thinks he wants to wrap him up in a blanket of body and never let him go until that expression vanishes. The boy is a vision of sorrow. Gavin wants to sleep next to him. He thinks is would be nice._   
  
_The cars flash like a strobe light and Gavin finds himself as a bird lost in branches.  
_

* * *

     “Welcome. Please sign in before taking a seat.” The phrase is so practiced it is robotic. The nurse behind the desk flashes a smile more akin to a grimace before turning back to her computer. Geoff shuffles forward with his arm around Gavin’s thin waist. Michael trails awkwardly in after them. The door closes too loudly.  
Geoff barely notices.  
  
      “Take him. I’ll sign us in,” Geoff mumbles gruffly. Michael doesn’t even know what he means at first and looks to question but finds Gavin’s body moving forward. He gently fits his arms around Gavin’s wrists and slips together their fingers. Sentiment has a place here somehow.  
  
      “Hey boy,” He whispers. Gavin squeezes his hands and smiles as weakly as wet paper. “How are you doing?” In the absence of much the importance of some amplifies. The lack of a response cannot always reduce the importance of the questions.  
  
      “I think I’m okay,” is the hushed response. He is lucid for the moment. He craves for these moments of real as a drowning man begs of air. Seconds above the surface of the waves are rare and Gavin fills them with touches and caresses.  
  
      They huddle together, more one body than two, as Geoff fills out forms at the desk. Their legs touch and their arms wind together. For a half-second, with the warmth of Michael’s body pressed tight against his, the voices don’t seem as loud.  
  
He sails away on the sounds of breath.

* * *

 

_“Hello Mr. Free.”_   
  
_Free_   
  
_What a thought_   
  
_He is free. He is air. He is a molecule of water._   
  
_He looks down at his arms. The edges are fraying. The end of his being is tenuous and frail and it comes apart in the beginning of space._   
  
_“Gavin,” says his boss. The ink is running._

* * *

 

     “Obviously we need to run some more tests.” The man speaking is wearing a long white coat. It looks like fire and smells like spilled paint. Time can be slowed to show truth. He should be wearing his-  
  
      “Lab coat,” Gavin mutters. The room stills. Hesitant fingers reach out to touch the white fabric. He whines low in this throat and in an instant two warm bodies are so close he can scarcely call them separate beings. Strong hands and inked skin fill the sides of his eyes but white remains the focus. This man wears a white coat. Dan appears as what should be and he isn’t and Gavin finally sees the light hit the stethoscope around a stranger’s neck.  
  
      “It looks a little cleaner than Dan’s doesn’t it?” Michael the mind-reader. Gavin chuckles lightly. “Eventually you are actually going to have to buy him a new one, ya know.”  
  
“He would just destroy the new one.”  
  
“The one now can barely still be considered a coat!”  
  
      Geoff doesn’t dare breathe until he almost passes out. It feels as if a too-strong breeze could tear this moment down and away and he needs this normalcy. He glances at Ethram and their eyes catch. Even if it feels as if time was created for these seconds, these seconds are too few, and they need Gavin awake. “Gavin,” Geoff calls gently. The look he receives from Michael isn’t angry. That would be easier. It is instead an expression of loss; as if Geoff stole the floor from beneath him. He suffers the look because he has to. “Buddy I need you to describe what’s going on to the doctor.”

     Gavin is not a poet. He is not a man of letters and he does not write meaningful prose. How wonders how he could possibly explain this madness- if there was a time for the invention of word let it be for this occasion for no part of his vocabulary can-  
  
      A hand squeezes his and Geoff looks as if he is suffocating. “I fade away,” He blurts out as if the sound can from outside him. “I don’t know where I go but there is always noise, but not real noise- fake noise- like- like- like too many people humming.” A dangerous feeling begins to rise in his chest and a tightness wraps like chain around his throat. _Oh no._ “I don’t want to-to go away.” His voice breaks. The two men sitting across from him blur as tears fill his eyes. Michael, his Michael, stays warm by his side.  
  
“I want to stay here. Please let me stay here.”  
  
Gavin cries.


	6. Howl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took this down to add more to it. I like it much more now. Thank you, and sorry, to those who commented on the deleted chapter. Your comments helped me find the energy to improve it.

     Griffon doesn’t believe in normal. She doesn’t believe in the definition- don’t dictate your end before you’ve breathed in your beginning. Don’t fall into molds as if your soul is liquid when in truth it is steel. And if there was such a thing as normal (which there isn’t) Griffon would definitely not fall into that definition. She wears ink as a scrap book. She has holes in her skin that she fills with metal and a chainsaw wielded as a carving knife.  
  
      And typical doesn’t exist, and mother doesn’t mean covered thighs and oven mitts, and Griffon has two beautiful children. She liked Gavin from the way her husband talked of him and she loved him the moment he stepped exhausted into her doorway and collapsed into her arms. He was awkward and all gangly limbed and wide nose and he fit so perfectly wrapped tight against her chest.  
  
      Griffon has Kevlar plating for a heart. She cries the first time Gavin and Millie play video games together. When Geoff tries to comfort her she leaves a bruise the size of her fist on his arm.  
  
      The first time Gavin accidentally calls her mom she panics and calls him a nerd and laughs in a way that gives the impression of an animal dying. Gavin sits stunned for a moment before trying to smile and failing and immediately Griffon has him wrapped in a bundle in her arms and tells him that she is fucking honored. The interaction is all-together awkward, but the second time he blurts out the word she only freezes for a half-second, and all times afterward she takes in stride.  
  
     He never corrects himself and she never corrects him either. He still mainly calls her Griffon and in public he calls her mom as a joke. Gavin never talks about his blood relatives, and none of them ever seem to call, and that is just fine.  
  
      Griffon isn’t soft or sweet and she isn’t one to kiss ouchies or have long, meaningful heart-to-hearts. Her husband always plays that role better; even if he tends to have even less tact than her. He is the one to realize when Gavin feels homesick and needs a night of peggle and bevs. He is the one to bring up Michael and subtly give his approval before Griffon even senses romance between them. Geoff teaches him how to love openly and embrace beauty in the world.  
  
      Griffon teaches him that normal doesn’t exist. She teaches him how to wield a chainsaw and how to brace himself against cold words and judgmental eyes. Griffon doesn’t believe in normal but she knows that other people worship the idea. The moment she met Gavin she knew he would shine brighter than the dull everyone seems to want. She refuses to shelter him, at least not too much, and instead helps him form armor with the words ‘fuck you’ branded on the front.  
She tries to teach him everything she can because he is her son and she loves him. But she couldn’t teach him how to stop his mind from fragmenting. She couldn’t teach him to sow together the edges of his thoughts when they started to unravel.  
  
And she doesn’t know how to help him.

* * *

  
  
      Griffon doesn’t get hungover. She is a finely tuned machine, alcohol as oil, and an overdose is a powerup. But she just took two flights home from a carving convention and she sipped whiskey above the clouds, speeding through a jet line, and her body ran on pictures of her family. She flipped through albums, watched shaky videos, and every frame called at her to finally get home.  
  
      Griffon doesn’t consider herself sentimental, and doesn’t consider herself soft, but she would give worlds to kiss her daughter goodnight. She wants to see her husband and her son wrestle over the controller. So when her flight was delayed, and she knew she had the option to stay a night in a nice hotel, she chose to camp for four hours in the airport.  
  
      It doesn’t matter that, this morning, she feels exhaustion like lead weights around her body. She got home in time to spend a few more valuable moments with the most important parts of her life. There is no regret when she stumbles from bed. Her husband, her Geoff, promised to take Millie to school on his way to work and her plan is to shove something into her mouth and collapse back into bed. Everything aches but she is home.  
  
      The kitchen is still dim. The red of the rising sun barely sighs through the trees. She looks through the glass doors and abandons the idea of food. She grabs a blanket from the bedroom and wraps it tightly around herself. The brick of the patio is chilling against her bare feet.

* * *

 

She catches him humming a tune to the trees.  
  
      “Why aren’t you at work?” She takes a seat beside him on the edge of the brick. The grass is damp with morning dew and slips wetly between her toes. “Are you going in late?” He doesn’t respond. She doesn’t look at him because lately his eyes are distant and faded. There aren’t answers in them. “Are you sick?” He just continues to hum gently with his eyes lost to the waving leaves. His rhythm stutters when she talks. A part of him knows that she is there. The wind picks up. Griffon throws one end of the blanket over Gavin’s shoulders and huddles against him. He blinks a few times and makes a soft noise of confusion.  
  
      “Why aren’t you at work?” Finally their eyes meet. Griffon watches the black of her son’s pupils pulsate as if attempting to focus on her- as if seeming to sense that she is actually there. “Are you sick?” He blinks a few more times before turning away from her again. His body leans more against her, though, and she feels victory in the idea that at least some part of him finds comfort in her.  
  
      “Yeah. Sick. Told Geoff to go.” He seems disjointed, distracted, but there is nothing here but swaying trees. Gavin hasn’t been sick enough to miss work in the entire time she has known him but neither can she remember him ever lying to her.  
  
      “I’m not sure what this is about,” She begins hesitantly, “and I’m sure Geoff would already have this figured but you know you can talk to me, right?” Her children remain the only way she succumbs to vulnerability. It is the only time she is unsure because falling doesn’t have a safety net and she is balancing for two on a tight rope.  
  
She tangles their fingers together.  
  
      Griffon knows the best way to carve wood with a chainsaw and how to brace a shotgun on her shoulder. She can take someone to the ground with her eyes and well placed blows. Somehow holding onto Gavin in this moment seems hard.  
  
      “I don’t know what’s going on Griffon,” Gavin says and his voice sounds like loss- sounds like staring down at a gravestone and wanting to sleep. “I don’t-,” He shudders, curls his sharp shoulders in and rests his head on twig thin fingers. “I don’t think I’m alright.”  
  
      Griffon presses her cheek against his arm. Gavin lets out a miserable wail. The howls of wolves would bear less threat than his cry. And she has a Kevlar plated heart, but she allowed Gavin through the armored doors years before, and he is setting off a fragmentation grenade. Anything else could have broken her less but for the first time she is faced with the idea of the loss of a child.  
  
_“I’m scared, mom.”_


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole thing is sort of crazy..   
> I changed chapter one a bit. I like it more now.

Geoff isn’t ready. The sky is filled with winged metal- steel skeleton angels circling like vultures. Geoff is watching from beyond the custom’s gates. He’s early and their flight is late. Two hours have passed; two hours and 26 minutes to be exact and he can be exact because every few minutes he checks his phone. He tries to maintain in his mind that he is checking the time and that he isn’t desperately afraid to miss a single update.

  
The plane still has to land and the lines at the desks are as long as always. He will probably wait for another hour. He pulls his phone from his jacket pocket and slides across the screen. The normal background stares back at him. There are no new messages. He opens a game, stares blankly at the screen, and closes it again. Gavin has the high score.

  
He must look like a madman.

  
Two hours and 37 minutes.

 

 

* * *

 

They sit him in a room with a one-way mirror. Gavin feels like prey. They dissect him- pick at him with pictures of black stains and pen shaped needles constantly scratching away. He has to be alone when they ask him questions. Michael bristled when they told him but didn’t really complain. Gavin thinks that maybe it has something to do with the way Geoff look at him.

  
The doctor is an Indian woman with thin lips and dark hair pulled tight into an impeccable bun that, despite not having a single loose hair, she continually touches and pats. Her accent is thick but Gavin doesn’t have too much trouble. The younger doctor is the one he has trouble understanding. He talks fast and with so much medical jargon that Gavin assumes he is trying to impress his older associate.

  
Unfortunately the younger doctor leads most of the testing.

  
“What is this?” The doctor shows him a- click- hang on- they constantly try to snap him back and all he wants is to rest for a little while. He is holding a paperclip and Gavin knew that. Well, he knows that now, and he tries to remember if he knew it before, and if before is meant to be when he asked or beyond that- they ask another question and don’t they realize he is trying to think-

  
“Who are you?” This time the woman asks the question.

  
“Gavin Free,” he answers automatically.

  
“That’s your name. Try to explain who you are.”

  
“Uh. Okay, I guess. I’m British. I run a YouTube channel called the Slow-Mo Guys and I work for-“She makes a soft noise in the back of her throat and Gavin pauses. She smiles and apologizes for interrupting him.

  
“Try to explain who you are. What do you actually feel like as a person? I am sure this might seem silly but it might help if you try not to think about it too much. Just talk.” She settles back into her chair as if to get comfortable for a long story. Gavin thinks that this is pretty fucking stupid.

  
“I’m sad.” His mouth feels dry. “Like, really sad. It’s hard to explain but it’s like my heart is breaking, all the time, into tinier and tinier pieces and now I think all that is left might be dust and I’m scared I’m never going to be happy again,” He shudders a breath- his eyes blue and he really doesn’t want to cry right now. “I never know what’s real and what’s not- I’ll talk to someone but I didn’t and I’m making everyone miserable-” He chokes; covers his face with his hands.

  
“I just want this to end.”

* * *

 

 

The clock, click click click , is singing lullabies. Don’t cry, baby- sing to the second hand- to the rhyme of sand slipping through your eyelashes. Hush little darling- hear the ravens calling- the mockingbird has broken wings.

 

* * *

 

Gavin whines. Waking up is disorienting and these days he doesn’t know what it means to sleep. All his worlds are broken. Vision is blinking through shattered glass, cracked ice, and his bones are too frozen to swim. He finds this time that he isn’t falling yet and that the ceiling is still white tile.

  
To test it he turns his head to the side and he finds the shade of a fall tree, cast under the light of a red sunset, twisted into loose curls. He doesn't always want to wake up, because half the time he wakes to another dream, but he would wake up a thousand times over if even once he gets to wake up to his boy's face. Even with bags under his eyes he looks young- with bright freckles and cherub cheeks that Gavin loves to pinch.

  
"Hey baby," He whispers.

  
Michael straightens so quickly the chair nearly tips. He snatches Gavin’s hand into his own. He goes to speak and finds only Gavin’s name is verbalized- spoken in mourning reverence, a kind of devastated adoration. Gavin looks at him with eyes of a new sunrise- vibrant though edged in shadow. His features are loud as ever- opera lines sung baritone and booming- every curve drawn bold.

  
“You’re beautiful baby,” Michael says hoarsely. Gavin smiles all soft and nice in that way that makes his heart hurt.  
  


* * *

 

  
They send him home with three prescriptions that Gavin can’t pronounce. Geoff makes sure he takes them. Two of them can be crushed and taken in a spoonful of jelly but one has to be taken whole. It is also the pill that is shaped like a square which Gavin thinks is a ridiculous shape to make something that someone has to swallow every day. He gags terribly when taking it. It makes his eyes water and his nose run and the side effects make his veins feel tight and his heart beat too fast.

  
Geoff notices that his eyes look a little crazed but they aren’t half dead and numbed so he considers it a victory.

  
Gavin’s thoughts quicken- rapid fire shockwaves in his head. He rearranges his room and doesn’t understand why Geoff makes him pick his dresser up from the floor. He ties his curtains into knots while Geoff talks loudly to doctors in the other room.  
  


* * *

 

_“Oh god no"_

  
Michael walks towards his lover with arms outstretched, palms open, eyes wide and terrified.  
  


* * *

 

 

“Hello?” quotes the tired voice an ocean away. There is a time difference that Geoff didn’t bother taking into account because he has been sitting in a too-small plastic chair in the intake area in a hospital for too long. He doesn’t care what time it is there, or that he woke them up, because he doesn’t ever get to sleep anymore. “Do you have any idea what time it is, Gavin?” It shouldn’t matter what time it is, it really fucking shouldn’t, because Geoff is calling from Gavin’s phone, and he looked at the recent calls and he hasn’t called them for six months. (They haven’t called him) is the undertone, the dangerous undercurrent, and it is dragging Geoff deep.

  
“Mrs. Free? This is Geoff Ramsey.” He isn’t screaming. He isn’t going to scream, either, if only for the sake of the tired nursing staff bustling around him. He is leaning against a shut door but he isn’t afraid to wake up the patient. A drip of a liquid that Geoff can’t pronounce and the constant mechanical beep of a heartbeat will drown out any noise he might make.

  
“Who? Oh- are you the man Gavin was staying with?” There is rustling, the noise of a light clicking on, another voice in the background, and all the while Geoff takes two deep breaths. The air feels like breathing through a cotton shirt. His son, his son, he thinks with clenched fists.

  
“Yes,” he replies with a voice short from no sleep. “I need to talk to you about Gavin.” In his mind he hisses at them to get worried- he wants to hear panic. Get frantic, get that blood flowing- wake up some remaining instinct to fight for your child. But he gets a yawn and a woman telling a man in hushed tones to go back to sleep and Geoff sees red.

  
“This is fucking important!” All he gets is a quick warning glance from a passing nurse who has more understanding than anger on her face. A quick intake breath comes across the line. Geoff feels like he hasn’t breathed deep in months. He’s running on no air, and no energy, and he feels like bone dry kindling drinking in sparks.

  
“What’s going on?” At last: concern; but not enough, he thinks viciously.

  
“Gavin’s in the hospital.” He pauses, lets that sink in like a knife. ‘David wake up’ is whispered against a background of movement. “He’s sick,” He almost chokes on his words. His nerves are flint and steel and any second he could burn back down into tears. His son, his son. Another nurse gives him a smile reserved for grave sides.  
  


* * *

 

The sirens shriek like mockingbirds.  
  


Gavin thinks he wants to sleep.

 

"Please, Gavin, I love you." Michael sobs.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 


	8. Chapter 8

 

> _"We didn't want him to think he was broken. We wanted him to think he was normal."_
> 
> _"Well, fuck you."_

 Eleanor Free is wearing white. She caught a flight in needle heels and rain drop earrings. Appearance matters, she freshens up in the lobby restroom, and she straightens her husband's tie before they leave the taxi.

It takes Ellie Free twenty minutes to find the correct floor, the number written neatly on a small piece of paper clutched in her shaking fingers. It took three hours on the phone at the front desk to convince someone to help her find which floor she even needed to go to. Her husband pants behinds her as she keeps a panic pace. The buildings are towers reaching to the sky, interconnected by bridges spanning over parking lots, each section labeled a separate horror. Each second passing introduces to her a new possibility, a new way of death, and by the time she steps from the elevator her son has several exotic types of cancer. There are too many doors, too many lists of doctors- wings dedicated to surgery and all she wants is to find her baby.

"Hello," Ellie speaks quietly to the nurse behind the counter. The woman barely glances at here through straggles of hair fallen from her bun and Ellie smooths her skirt nervously. "I am here to see my son, Gavin Free." The nurse pauses typing to give the woman a once over. A beat of silence. Every dead end can fit into a pause, death stands on the head of a pin, and she thinks she hears her son die in the empty space.

 "What are your names?"

 "Eleanor and David Free."

 The nurse moves some files, pushes some papers, and hums to herself. Ellie wipes a drop of sweat from her forehead. "His partner is in there with him right now. I'll tell him that you are here. Take a seat over there." The woman isn't polite, she doesn't even say please, but Ellie won't make a fuss. She sits, her husband half dead in the chair beside her, and forms her face into one reserved and not near tears.

Her fingers tap, legs shake- she can't stop moving now (hasn't stopped since fourteen hours prior) or her mind might realize her body is empty, no energy left, and she might crack completely open.

 The man who walks her way is short. He is young, muscles stained with ink, hair wild and eyes crazed. He looks of company she doesn't keep, the kind she crosses the street not to see. She waits for him to pass her but he stops in front of her. She blinks up at him. There are words she knows to say. Those raised to be correct are raised to be proper beside a grave and that open wounds are no excuse for bad manners.

"I thought Geoff told you to call him when your flight landed." He beats her to hello.

"I don't need to ask permission to see my son!" She nearly falls to be on her feet. Her bloodline made her tall, heels take her even higher, but she has never felt smaller. The fury in her own voice shakes her. She says sorry in her head but she isn't sure why.

"He stopped being your son when you stopped calling him!"

"Michael," The nurse speaks up sharply. The reprimand looks physically painful to him, yet not unfamiliar, as if he is practiced in taking the blow. He takes a shuddering breath with closed eyes, silence counts to ten, and Ellie realizes she hasn't taken a breath in a minute.

They are taken to a room and they shut the door but a hospital is never quiet.

"I want to see my son."

"Only if he wants to see you."

"Of course he wants to see me!"

"He doesn't know what the fuck he wants right now!" Michael swings, sends the bedside table to the floor. He lets out a frustrated cry. The door swings open, nurse pushing in, but she doesn't mention the mess or the screams. All she says is 'Michael'.

Michael runs.

 

Fours hours.

Ellie Free waits for four hours for Michael to come sit beside her. 

There is a moment of silence.

She swears she can still hear her son screaming. She clutches her bag, hears the crinkle of the papers held in it.

"I know whats wrong with him."

Michael turns to stare at her.

 


	9. Normal

They all sit at a table.

 

Eleanor shuffles the papers in her lap. Twenty-Six pages, with Gavin Free written in bold on the first page.

 

_“Gavin come back here with my camera! You’ll break it!”_

 

“He was always different as a child. So loud- it wasn’t proper. You understand,” She glances to her husband for confirmation and finds a sad-eyed man staring at ink stains on the conference room table. She takes a deep breath. Steady, she says to herself.

 

“So when… when he started to get a bit quiet in the fifth grade we welcomed it. He was finally starting to grow up into a normal lad.”

 

I’m not a bad mother, she pleads to the room. Geoff taps his fingers on the table. There is a judgment there. Michael is barely sitting, traces of tears on his face, and she is a proper English lady but she recognizes the way his fists are clenches, knuckles white, and she thinks of how far away the nearest security officer probably is.

 

Gavin never told her he was dating, never even said he was gay, and she is struck by the fact that these men are strangers and yet they know her son better than her.

 

Geoff coughs, glances at the clock, and she knows his patience is running thin.

 

_“Gavin? What’s the matter, dear?” She stroked his back, listened to him sob._

_“I’m just so sad, mum.”_

 

“But then he started acting even more odd.” The words catch in her throat. This isn’t the time to be emotional, not where people can see, and another side eye at her husband displays nothing but the same. Ellie is used to standing on her own. She did back then.

 

And meanwhile Michael just left his lover sedated and Geoff is five shots too sober for conversation.

 

“Odd how?” Geoff leans forward, arms crossed upon the table. Ellie hesitates and he throws up his hands in frustration. “We don’t have time for this! Just get to the point!” She flinches but he is unrelenting in his gaze. Steady, she breathes, steady.

 

“He started crying all the time. And he would stare off into nothing. We thought it was just growing pains at first but then… but then he started to seem confused; like he didn’t know where he was.”

 

_“Gavin? What are you doing, love? It’s the middle of the night!”_   
  
_His empty stare, even as a child, was haunting. He looked at her as if she was a stranger._

 

“We took him to the doctor, of course. And at first they couldn’t decide on one thing to be wrong with him. They said it was schizophrenia, then bipolar, then it was dementia. But every time they would do more tests and something wouldn’t fit.” A tear slips down her face. “They called specialists and experts and no one could tell me what was wrong with my son.”

 

_She looked the brain scans, hanging like art. “What you are looking at is a significant decrease in neural activity.” She nodded, as if she understood, and he explained because he knew she didn’t. “As things happen, parts of the brain should react. For example, when you gave him the camera. His brain should have reacted. It isn’t because of damage or deterioration like we would see in patients with injuries or dementia.” He sat down, seemingly heavy with so many ideas and yet no idea on what to do with her child._

_“We are going to call in another expert. This isn’t hopeless, Mrs. Free.”_

_She looked at the pictures of her child’s mind, dark and bleak, and she thought it looked like a dead end._

 

“Finally an expert from Finland saw him. He figured it out in half an hour.” She smiles sadly. “Or rather he figured out what to do. He didn’t try to diagnose him. He saw him, prescribed him some pills, and that was that. In less than a month I had my son back. Like it never happened. The doctor told me I was lucky before he left. He said he usually didn’t find the right medication on the first try.”

 

_“Gavin showed remarkable improvement in the cognitive tests today. While it is still very early to know, I believe these medications will greatly improve his function.”_

_He was so pompous, so sure, but he could be as rude as he wanted if he gave her back her son._

_“I am not going to give him a proper diagnosis. The doctors here can figure one out. The important thing is that he stay on his medication. Even if he seems better you must continue the medication. Do you understand?”_

_“Of course, doctor.” And she had meant it at the time._

 

“Wait so what was wrong with him?”

 

“Officially?” Ellie straightens out her papers- holds them up to read. “Officially he has Major Depressive Disorder with Psychotic Aspect.” She throws the paper onto the desk. “Unofficially I was told he was so sad he simply lost his mind. I didn’t really believe it. But the medication started working. He recognized me.”

 

“Why didn’t you tell me this when he came here? Fuck, why didn’t ****he****  tell me?”

 

Eleanor knew this question would come but it doesn’t make her any more prepared. Shame builds in her chest.

 

“We didn’t tell him.” The clock ticks down. Sedation can last one hour to eight. Gavin usually wakes up after two. Michael is itching. He barely understands what she’s saying but it all sounds like bullshit.

 

“What?”

 

“We didn’t tell him. We thought- we thought he deserved to be normal.” She straightens her shoulders up and back despite the guilt feeling like a thousand pound weight on them. Don’t be ashamed, she tells herself, you did what every good mother would. It is a phrase she has repeated to herself daily for over ten years and yet her conviction in it falters the moment Geoff looks at her.

 

“What about his medication? He was in the hospital- didn’t he ask questions?” There is more disbelief than anger. Her husband rests his head in his hands. She resents him for a moment, for leaving her alone in the face of this. He was always so fucking quiet in the doctors’ offices, in the hospital, and now he is leaving her to face these angry men alone. Steady, she breathes, and feels her fingernails dig into her palm.

 

“We told him he was ill. He barely remembered any of it anyway. As for the medication,” She clears her throat again, “We told him they were vitamins. Ones he had to take or he would get sick again.” Silence settles, and in it she hears her own ragged breathing, and in it she can hear her own words played out loud for everyone to tear apart.

 

“We didn’t want him to think he was broken. We wanted him to think he was normal.” Their opinion shouldn’t matter, she is a good mother, but somehow she is reduced to pleading. “I did the right thing!”

 

“Well, fuck you.” Geoff stands. “What fucking medication was he on?”

 

“Pristiq, Buproprion, and Valium.” She absently flips through the papers, spreads them out on the desk. Page after page, typed so neatly like they weren’t months of hell. Nowhere on the pages did it describe her crying herself to sleep at night, every night, wondering when her child could come home. “At first he couldn’t stop throwing up so they added in Zofran. He also couldn’t sleep at first so they had him on Trazadone at night. It made him exhausted to they added Adderall in the morning. Over time they allowed us to take off the extras.”

 

Geoff begins to gather the pages in his hands. Her child’s life in twenty-six pages. She catches his hand. He pauses but he refuses to look at her. “Please. Please you have to understand. When he wanted to come to America he was doing so much better. He said he didn’t want to take the vitamins anymore. I couldn’t explain it to him. I couldn’t. And it was so long ago.” He shakes her off and gathers the last of the pages. Michael stands. “I thought he was better. I thought he would be fine!”

 

They leave, without sparing her a word.

 

She buries her head in her hands and sobs.

 

The next morning they give him Pristiq 100mg, Buproprion 200mg, and Valium 2mg. He vomits violently. They give him an I.V of Zofran. At night they give him 50mg of Trazadone.

 

It takes three days for Gavin to show improved cognitive function. The doctors discuss results, and technical terms, and all Michael sees is that his blinks are quicker. He notices that Gavin's hand curls tighter around his own, and that he turns his head into the sunlight where it lays on his pillow, and all Michael thinks is that his boy is coming back to him.


	10. Count

He had blamed it on jet lag. He had blamed it a new country, a new life, a new time zone. Day one seemed no different and day two he was tired but by the fifth day his whole body felt like it was on delay. His eyes couldn’t catch up to his vision; his stomach cramped and he threw up everything he ate. Griffon had brushed his hair back and told him Texas heat was brutal. 

He calls his mother. His blood felt slow in his veins. Headache, day three. Nausea, day six. Most of his new days are spent in bed. She mailed him some vitamins, express shipping. He guards the mailbox; no need to worry Geoff. When they arrive he closes his door, locks it, opens the bag as quietly as he can. Five bottles, with lines of glue where the label was ripped off and numbers written in their stead. 

There is a short letter: which one to take and when to take them. Number one is marked priority. Don’t miss it, don’t mess up, write me when you need more. If he wasn’t in a borrowed room he would scream. He’s tempted, as he had been before, to ask someone, anyone if this is normal; if everyone takes ‘vitamins’. But he is discouraged, as he had been before, by the picture of his mother’s face when he questioned her.Like the world was falling. 

He tries to dry swallow number one. He vomits. Geoff knocks and he has to try to explain through a closed door. He cleans up with a tshirt and chucks it in the trash. From 30 to 29. He gets a glass of water and tries again. It goes down. From 29 to 28. 

The next day his veins feel like twine was wrapped around them and pulled taut. He throws up more violently than before. The blood vessels in his face and chest pop and leave him looking swollen. Number four- from 30 to 29. 

Thirty days seems too short. He wanted to leave this behind, all of this, and every time he calls his mother she asks how he is in that hushed, secret way and he hates it. He tries to cut number one in half. It cracks into tiny pieces. He pours the dust into some water to try to salvage it. He throws up. Number One-from 28 to 27. 

He body feels like a rubber band, pulled tight, let loose, pulled back tight. Geoff asks him if he wants to put off going into the office and he refuses. He almost throws up getting dressed. Number four- from 29 to 28. 

 

He stretches out his supply. On one day, off for three. Number two doesn’t make him as sick as number one. The nausea becomes background noise, always there, and he ignores it. He doesn’t eat much. He tries number three and flies. He doesn’t remember ever feeling high before. It feels dangerous.Number five hits like a truck. He takes it at night, like the note says, and sleeps for fourteen hours. Geoff asks him what’s wrong and he lies again.Number three and number five go into the suitcase pocket and he resolves to never take them again. 

He is down to fifteen of number one, twenty of number two, twenty-nine of number three, twelve of number four, and when Geoff hands him a package from his mother. It rattles loudly and Geoff lifts an eyebrow but something in Gavin’s face must tell him not to ask. He doesn’t even need to open it to know that there are five bottles inside, marked one through five. 

He vows to himself that he won’t even touch the second shipment. He just needed to come down gradually, wean himself off, but he can’t make himself throw them away. Someone could find them in the trash, he rationalized. It wasn’t safe. 

He continues his ration. He figures out a system. The package shows up every month like clockwork. He watches for it now; tries to make sure Griffon or Geoff don’t see it. They don’t need to know he’s sick. He’ll stop soon. He’ll get better. 

“Do you understand what happened?” Michael is stroking his hand, the one not with the needle buried inside, and talking to him like a child. He isn’t angry, doesn’t have the energy for it, and his lover’s voice is so soft. 

“Not really.” His voice is hoarse, like he wasn’t talking at all, or like he was screaming, and he imagines either could have happened in the gap in his memory. “Why do I have an I.V?” He doesn’t hate needles but no one really likes them. His arm is sore and there are bruises like track marks. 

“It’s for nausea. It works faster this way. They were worried you would keep throwing up the other medications.” 

Number Four. 

“What other medications?”

“Pristiq, Buproprion, and Valium. Sometimes Trazadone.”

He closes his eyes. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing is fucking wrong with you.” Michael’s grip tightens to the point of pain. He opens his eyes; looks at him. He is staring down. “I’m fucking serious. You’re a little fucked up, sure, but everyone fucking is.” 

No hospital room is truly quiet. His chest monitors beep in rhythm. “Michael.”He sighs, deep and low. 

“Major Depressive Disorder with Psychotic Aspect.Your fucking mom-”

“My mom?”

“Yeah she -uh- she flew in after... after you started getting really bad.”

“What- what did she say?”

“She said that when you were younger you got really sick. Like, sick up here,” He taps his head with his free hand. “They put you on a bunch of fucking pills but your stupid fucking mom-”

“Michael, please,”He pleads. He doesn’t get along with his mother but she’s still his mom. His head is spinning. He grips into Michael tighter. 

“Sorry, sorry,” He says like habit, because his mouth gets him in trouble all the time, and its only natural. “Your lovely mother,” he begins, making Gavin snort, “didn’t want to tell you. So she made up this story that you were on vitamins. But when you came to the States she didn’t know how to tell you so she just didn’t.”

“So I’m sick?”God, he knew it, knew something was seriously wrong. 

“Hey. I told you. You’re fucking perfect. You’re just a little crazy. Everyone is.” Gavin closes his eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” He sniffles. He tries to raise his other hand to wipe away the tears welling in his eyes and feels the sharp tug of the I.V. “Ow,” He whimpers, and begins crying harder. Michael is on him in a second, like practice; lowering his hand to the bed and wrapping around him like a blanket. “I’m so sorry,” He tries to sob out, ends up mostly nothing. 

Michael tells him he has nothing to be sorry about, but there are pills one through five, half empty half full, hidden in his suitcase, hidden in his closet. 

“I didn’t want to be sick anymore. I wanted to be better for you.” A nurse hovers at the door. Michael waves her away. 

“What are you talking about?” 

“When I came here I got really sick and I just couldn’t feel better,” He tries to breathe in between but ends up with shallow, sharp inhales. “So I called my mom and she sent me my vitamins. But I- I didn’t take them every day. I didn’t want to.” Spots appear in his eyes and the nurse, who never left, approaches and has him lie back. Michael’s arm is still around his shoulder and he comes down with him, cradling him. 

“Okay, Gavin, I need you to take deep breaths for me.” The nurse has her hand on his shoulder. It takes the two of them ten minutes to calm him down. They escaped sedation, this time, but Michael knows the next shift might not be so lenient. She leaves with a warning to keep the subject light. Michael clearly agrees. But Gavin has a ten ton weight on his chest and his breathing may be slower but it doesn’t make it come any easier. 

“Please. I need to tell you.”Michael tells him they have all the time in the world. Gavin feels like he is sprinting towards a finish line, towards an end, and the room around him feels like its caving in. 

“I didn’t take them every day, I swear. Just enough to get by. I wanted to stop completely but I would just get so sick. I wanted to stop, I promise,” He clutches to Michael’s arm with his free hand, his other one twitching uselessly on the bed. Michael tells him to breathe in and out, nice and slow. “When you started talking about moving in together I knew I had to stop. I couldn’t hide it from you. I had to quit taking them completely. I got so sick but I told Geoff I had the flu and after a few weeks it didn’t feel so bad. I thought I was better.I’m so sorry,” He sobs out. Michael makes him breathe again, nice and slow. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong. No,” He cuts him off when Gavin tries to interject. “You did the fucking best you could. What matters now is that you’re better.You made it.”He buries his head in Gavin’s hair and takes his own deep breaths. “God, Gavin I’m just fucking glad you’re here.”

Time passes around them, they let it, find their peace in between the chirp of the heart monitor.

It takes a long time to sort everything out. Geoff smuggles a bottle of whiskey inside a too-obvious trench coat. It still has the price tag on it, clearly bought for this occasion alone, and Griffon pulls shot glasses out of her purse.Michael almost pitches a fit; all the pills say not to drink alcohol (don’t they know that) and what if it sets him back- He is pulling up the warning labels on his phone when Gavin pours his own drink and throws it back. It almost doesn’t stay down, the burn too unfamiliar, but he manages it and soon the warmth fills his chest.

He is satisfied with one, Geoff settles for six, and Griffon just drinks directly from the bottle. Michael is still a nervous thrum of energy but he finally pours himself two. 

The I.V is out, chest monitor disconnected, and with the smell of whiskey permeating the room it all seems normal.

They talk things out. It takes hours. The nurses knock every once in awhile, pretend not to see the bottle neck sticking out from beneath the bed, and smile at Gavin like he’s a stranger come home. It feels odd,but Michael knows each of them by name, and Gavin thinks he probably should as well. 

Gavin tells Geoff and Griffon everything. He doesn’t know what he expected but if he was worried it all melts away when Geoff crushes him in a hug and tells him none of it matters. It seems surreal. He spent so much time terrified of anyone finding out; of anyone thinking he was broken beyond repair. For so long he survived by himself, hung on by the tips of his fingers and just tried to make it through. 

And now? 

Now Griffon is telling him how, after his weekly therapy session, she is going to take him to the shop and teach him some woodworking. Geoff is telling him how his medication is permanent, but not non-negotiable, and he already has three different doctors for him to look at, and in the same sentence he is proposing an addition to Achievement City- no it wouldn’t blow up- it’s this fishing dock. 

When he would talk about his ‘vitamins’ with his parents they would shut down. They treated his childhood, his ‘illness’ like this forbidden, taboo topic. 

Geoff and Griffon are treating it like just another quirk. They are already fitting him, all of him, into their lives as easily as they did before. This is family, he thinks. Maybe not blood, maybe not conventional, but God is it perfect to him.


End file.
